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This is a remarkably interesting image. How do these guys even get these shots? I'd love to do this on all kinds of things at home..

sweetjuly 4y ago
I really like this one Defcon talk on chip decapping [1]. It's a pretty nasty process but absolutely one you can do on your driveway (poor man's fume hood, don't tell the EPA) at home. You can then just use a standard front lit microscope to take die shots. [1] https://youtu.be/0Z4aF-qiziM https://youtu.be/0Z4aF-qiziM
kens 4y ago
For die photos, you want a metallurgical microscope, one that shines light down through the lens. A typical microscope shines the light from underneath, which works well for biological samples, but not so well for chips. The tricky part is decapping the chip. The easy way is to get a ceramic package, which you can decap with a chisel. Or a metal can, which you can open with a hacksaw. With a standard epoxy package, you can heat it with a hot air gun and twist it, and you have maybe 50% chance of the die separating from a package. The best way for epoxy packages is boiling sulfuric and/or nitric acid, which has obvious issues. The other aspect is that you need to stitch together a bunch of images to get a high-resolution photo. I use Hugin, which lets just say that it has a learning curve.
- krzrak 4y ago
  Thank you for your informative answer.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- dekhn 4y ago
  Have you tried ImageJ, specifically the Grid/Collection Stitching? I use it for microscope stitching and it works pretty well.
  - BarsMonster 4y ago
    I tried it at the beginning, but found it quite complicated. A the moment Hugin is used, which works nearly perfectly, especially on XY stage where you can disable frame rotation optimization.
- omoikane 4y ago
  This same site has an article on laser decapsulation not too long ago: https://zeptobars.com/en/read/laser-decapsulation-fail-not-so-fast https://zeptobars.com/en/read/laser-decapsulation-fail-not-s... It appears to not work so well, but the video looked very cool.
BarsMonster 4y ago
Some time ago I posted exactly about that : https://zeptobars.com/en/read/how-to-open-microchip-asic-what-inside https://zeptobars.com/en/read/how-to-open-microchip-asic-wha... My latest microscope is this one, but Casio photo was made by temporary microscope I assembled from Thorlabs & Olympus parts: https://3.14.by/en/read/olympus-bx60-fluorescence-metallurgical-microscope https://3.14.by/en/read/olympus-bx60-fluorescence-metallurgi...
r2_pilot 4y ago
I found this book to be quite beautiful. It even says how they did some of the shots at the end. https://nostarch.com/open-circuits https://nostarch.com/open-circuits

sweetjuly 4y ago

I really like this one Defcon talk on chip decapping [1]. It's a pretty nasty process but absolutely one you can do on your driveway (poor man's fume hood, don't tell the EPA) at home. You can then just use a standard front lit microscope to take die shots. [1] https://youtu.be/0Z4aF-qiziM https://youtu.be/0Z4aF-qiziM

kens 4y ago

For die photos, you want a metallurgical microscope, one that shines light down through the lens. A typical microscope shines the light from underneath, which works well for biological samples, but not so well for chips. The tricky part is decapping the chip. The easy way is to get a ceramic package, which you can decap with a chisel. Or a metal can, which you can open with a hacksaw. With a standard epoxy package, you can heat it with a hot air gun and twist it, and you have maybe 50% chance of the die separating from a package. The best way for epoxy packages is boiling sulfuric and/or nitric acid, which has obvious issues. The other aspect is that you need to stitch together a bunch of images to get a high-resolution photo. I use Hugin, which lets just say that it has a learning curve.

krzrak 4y ago
Thank you for your informative answer.
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]
dekhn 4y ago
Have you tried ImageJ, specifically the Grid/Collection Stitching? I use it for microscope stitching and it works pretty well.
- BarsMonster 4y ago
  I tried it at the beginning, but found it quite complicated. A the moment Hugin is used, which works nearly perfectly, especially on XY stage where you can disable frame rotation optimization.
omoikane 4y ago
This same site has an article on laser decapsulation not too long ago: https://zeptobars.com/en/read/laser-decapsulation-fail-not-so-fast https://zeptobars.com/en/read/laser-decapsulation-fail-not-s... It appears to not work so well, but the video looked very cool.

BarsMonster 4y ago

Some time ago I posted exactly about that : https://zeptobars.com/en/read/how-to-open-microchip-asic-what-inside https://zeptobars.com/en/read/how-to-open-microchip-asic-wha... My latest microscope is this one, but Casio photo was made by temporary microscope I assembled from Thorlabs & Olympus parts: https://3.14.by/en/read/olympus-bx60-fluorescence-metallurgical-microscope https://3.14.by/en/read/olympus-bx60-fluorescence-metallurgi...

r2_pilot 4y ago

I found this book to be quite beautiful. It even says how they did some of the shots at the end. https://nostarch.com/open-circuits https://nostarch.com/open-circuits